Reminder: No in-game updates have occurred. The next update is a work-in-progress and is not complete. I will post a large message once I get the new client operational for testing.

Engine Milestone 3 has been making steady progress. This milestone has been much more complex than expected. The first task of this iteration was to simply get much code operational under the new environment so that our entire engine could render. This took many passes to convert transformation and rotation code in steps to bring it online so that each step could be tested as much as possible before adding another layer. However, as expected, when you get all the parts working and try to see something visually the first time, it never occurs perfectly.

Small issues when you have this much code can be tough to diagnose without breaking them down to simple shapes. One daunting issue that was found (I'm sure documentation could have told me, but there is some things you just assume to be working the same) was matrix transforms are performed with the x and y axis transposed. Another was matrix multiplication happened in the new environment in reverse order (unlike regular multiplication where you can multiply in any order, matrix multiplication only gets the desired result if done in the specified order.)

Below is a screenshot of many features working for the first time:

* Textures are the lowest resolution textures we have - I need it to load quickly when I am testing.

Left to do:

• Completed Jan 24-Road and River code is not operational.
• Completed Feb 16-Sky and Water need to render properly in the environment (not just render in the test code.)
• Completed Feb 14-Lighting needs to be added (note in picture everything is "glowing" with ambient light.)
• Billboards need to be plugged in.
• Completed Jan 17-Animated Meshes need to work properly.
• Completed Jan 18-Framerate needs vast improvement.
• Trees do not currently render.
• 2D User interface needs to be re-written.
• Completed Apr 04-Move code into it's own application, rather than having it in one of Ogre's test applications - This will be easy.
• Integrate game sounds (in their current form) into the new engine.
• Completed Jan 18-Collision Detection needs to be re-enabled.
• Transparency needs to be re-enabled.
• Completed Jan 23-Landscape needs to be properly textured.
• Ambient light on 3DS max objects needs to be remapped to texture scripts.
• Completed Feb 20-Need to move from using OIS input layer to SDL.
  

I should have an update monthly at this point. My goal is to have all code operational (as it used to be- with no visual changes except for the UI) by March/April.

Completed:

• Jan 17: Animated Meshes work properly.
• Jan 18: Framerate is now fast enough.
• Jan 18: Collision Detection is re-enabled.

Framerate is now in the right ballpark. It will be easy to raise further and is no longer a priority at this time.

Completed:

• Jan 23: Landscape is now properly textured.
• Jan 24: Road and River code is now operational.

I will be working on other priorities other than the game for the next few weeks.

My next update will be around February 14 and updates will most-likely be weekly until the new client is complete. If all goes well, the new client will be complete around mid March.

Keep in mind on the first pass, the new client will look the same as the old one. However, the new client has great potential to be improved and modernized once this port is complete.

I will need your help with testing to work the kinks out before I start taking advantage of the new technologies.

This week has been slow, since we got back from vacation my daughter has been sick. Still there has been some progress.

Completed:

• Feb 13: When road code was modified to work with Ogre, it broke the "Genericness" of road code. Road code is generic again.
• Feb 14: Lighting is now working properly.

My primary focus this past week has been on the input layer. While it was boring code, it is very necessary for platform independence.

Completed:

• Feb 16: Sky and Water now render properly in the environment.
• Feb 22: Moved input layer from OIS and DirectInput to SDL.

No software development occurred over this past weekend.

I upgraded our server hardware, this required reconfiguration of everything - a very painful weekend.

Glad it's over but the new hardware is quite an upgrade, we should be ready for users once I am ready for them.

Over the past month, a huge amount of progress has occurred.

The screenshot below demonstrates many technologies converted. Points of interest in the screen shot: New UI, Creatures - in this case elephants, proper shading):



There has been two focuses for the past month: The first goal is to insure platform independence. The second has been the continued work from the list in the first post of this thread with a focus on GUI. We will have a Mac and a PC version. Here is some of the stuff that has been accomplished:

1. Configured a new linux system with build environment and libs to build our game.
2. Configured a new windows system.
3. Made our patch program platform independent (it used to only work in windows) - Added manifest to support security for vista/windows7.
4. Rebuilt the installer program for windows.
5. There has been linux version working with ogre the whole time. Yesterday was the first day that windows version worked with the new codebase. This is huge.
6. Updated server download module as well as client module to fix various bugs due to new compression tactics.
7. Started conversion of our UI to CEGUI. Current screens converted are: Chat, Combat Text, Health Bar, Target Bar, and Personal Stats. Right now I am not focusing on aesthetics, that will come in the next pass. When we wrote our original UI code, we knew that it was throw-away code, waiting for a robust UI to replace it. CEGUI is extremely robust and it's exciting seeing the first portions working in it. Notice the real scroll bars on the chat windows. Converting each of the UIs is fairly slow. Now that I'm familiar with CEGUI, I am hoping to average 4 hours per UI.

Once key UIs have been converted, I will build a new installer where you will be able to choose to play with new code base, or play the old. When I do release the new code, I will post a message so you can have a sneak peak at it. Right now I'm not looking for bug reports on it as it is still a work-in-progress and I have logged a ton of bugs that I will clean up rapidly.

GUI Screens Converted:

• Chat
• Combat Text
• Health Bar
• Target Bar
• Personal Stats
• Error Backdrop screen
• Experience Bar
• Help
• Inventory
• Main Equipment
• Personal Stats (with 3 sub-tabs)
• Purchase screen (selling still needs to be done)
• Quest text screens
• Spell Book
• Done 04/17-Macro Bar
• Done 04/17-Cast progress bar
• Done 04/17-Item info popup

Still Left:

• Minimap
• NPC Locator
• Group screens
• Keyboard Configuration
• Quest Journal
• Secondary Equipment
• Trade Screen
• Bank
• Menu
• Buffs

Screens converted this week:

• Macro Bar
• Item Info PopUp
• Cast Progress Bar

I have upgraded to use CEGUI version 0.7.1 as well as Ogre3D version 1.7.0. The upgrade to CEGUI gives quite a bit of extra functionality as well as much better performance. On the Ogre3D side, I get better stability as well as performance.

I'm currently working on getting a stable build of the game for the PC (the linux one is currently working great). Once I am through with making it more stable, I'll upload a version to try. Again, it wont be as functional as the old one (yet), nor will it perform as well (yet), and it will be more buggy. But, once I get a month or two to stabilize and ramp up functionality, it will blow the old game engine away and I can finally retire it.

I am proud to announce that I have placed a test version up of the game. In order to play, you will have to login and play the old version to insure all files are up-to-date. After that, quit out and login to the web page. Navigate to the play character screen and checkmark Try test Version(unstable!)

At this point I know it is full of bugs and lacks functionality and will crash when you exit. I do not want bug reports on any of this.

What I do want to know is if you can even run it, or if it crashes when you attempt to run it. When you send me the confirmation, please let me know what version of windows you are using.

I have resolved several issues with people not being able to run the test version. These include:

• Installer was 3 months old and didn't include 100 MB of additional data required by the new game. This has been updated so you can download and play without a huge additional download.
• There were problems with our updater under certain circumstances with Windows 7. All known issues have been corrected.
• There was an incorrect default file included that included personal configuration settings for DirectX/OpenGL. This guaranteed the default configuration wasn't what your system needed.

I downloaded and installed the latest available version. Once everything updated I played the game for a bit. I logged off and tried the test version. It failed during load.

System:
Windows Vista Business (SP1)
64-bit
Intel Core2 Extreme CPU X9650 3GHz x2
4GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250

Below is the load messages:

Hey, thanks for the screenshot, it helped quite a bit. Did you see a dialog screen with OGRE on it? Or did it crash before that screen (based off of the load process I am uncertain).

Jason

The Hrocka Mag update screen loaded and then the prompt window opened and displayed what I posted. Then the standard windows "close, close reopen, report" window opened. The Ogre window never displayed.